At conferences, in meetings, and even during casual work conversations, I am asked the same two questions: “Which countries are ideal for investments in infrastructure? Where should the investors invest and what new opportunities should they look toward?”

While sitting in the World Bank gives us a bird’s-eye view of emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), it doesn’t offer the up-close-and-personal perspective that investors demand in order to answer these questions in a succinct way. Not that there’s any shortage of synoptic responses. Any number of “market gurus” can assess projects in a second, gathering all the low hanging fruits which are out there in EMDEs. If there is a private deal to be made, then the deal is already done.

Birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts already know that a field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife or other objects that occur naturally, like minerals. It’s meant to be carried into the “field” to help distinguish between similar objects.

At the Global Infrastructure Hub, we thought it was time for a field guide to infrastructure, pointing out the different resources that populate the landscape and helping them connect better. The Global Infrastructure Hub’s Field Guide to Infrastructure Resources (Field Guide) collects together existing resources and helps the user establish connections among them.

Saturday’s Global Infrastructure Forum was full of firsts: this unprecedented daylong gathering in Washington, DC brought together the leaders of the multilateral development banks (MDBs), as well as development partners and representatives of the G20, G-24, and G-77, the OECD, the Global Infrastructure Hub and the United Nations. All shared the goal of enhancing multilateral collaboration to improve infrastructure delivery globally.

Conversation may be an art, but the best conversations spur action, too – and the upcoming Global Infrastructure Forum 2016 will focus on strengthening and formalizing collaboration among multilateral development banks (MDBs) to improve infrastructure delivery around the world. This unprecedented daylong gathering in Washington, DC brings together the leaders of the MDBs, as well as development partners and representatives of the G20, G-24, and G-77 and the United Nations, with the aim of enhancing multilateral collaborative mechanisms to improve infrastructure delivery globally.

Back in 2000, a research assistant and I received a request from a multilateral development bank that wanted a model for how much money was needed for them to invest in Latin America. I put together a very simple model – it was actually more of a benchmarking exercise – asking what kind of infrastructure in roads, energy, and water/sanitation that countries had at that time, based on income, economic structure, and urbanization. Then I created projections in terms of income and urbanization. I thought, “Well, assuming countries grow this way and follow the patterns of the past, it’s quite easy to deduce an investment pattern and an investment amount.” I called this final figure the “infrastructure gap.” Little did I expect it, but the term caught on and a subset of literature of infrastructure investment was born. We’re still talking about the infrastructure gap today, and it is a focus of the upcoming Global Infrastructure Forum 2016.

But a lot has changed in 16 years, and it’s time to re-cast our conversation about the infrastructure gap. In fact, it’s imperative to change the conversation if we want to achieve our goals. And the Forum is the right place to start.

Zambian President Edgar Chagwa Lungu cuts the ribbon to mark the construction of the new Mwomboshi Dam, projected to be the largest dam in the country’s history.
Photo credit: Royd Sibajene

Amid pomp, traditional dance and splendor, in rural Chisamba, central Province, the President of Zambia, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, cut an elaborate ribbon donned in Zambian colors of red, black, green and orange to lay a foundation stone to mark the construction of the Mwomboshi Dam. The dam construction is funded by the World Bank under the Irrigation Development and Support Project (ISDP) with the amount of $37 million. Not only did I attend this significant ground-breaking ceremony as a representative of the World Bank Group (WBG), but I also took the opportunity to say a Bemba agriculture idiom I have been taught by my colleagues at the office.

Open defecation remains a critical global health challenge, affecting almost 1 billion people around the world and contributing significantly to the estimated 842,000 people who die each year because of poor sanitation, hygiene practices, and unsafe water supplies [1].

Most behavior change approaches and frameworks for addressing open defecation have focused on relatively conscious, “reflective” drivers of behavior, including people’s emotions (such as pride or shame), rational knowledge (e.g., of germ theory), social norms, and explicit action plans (such as commitments to change). Using the framework popularized by renowned social psychologist Daniel Kahneman [2].<, these factors can be described as “System 2” drivers of behavior i.e., relatively conscious and motivational factors. It is now well established, however, that human behavior can also be heavily influenced by “System 1” drivers i.e., relatively automatic, cue-driven factors [3].

We have all come across people whose homes have beautiful and always blooming plants and flowers – people with a so-called “green thumb”.

But did you know that cities too can have a “green thumb”? Singapore is certainly one of those cities.

Also known as the "garden city”, Singapore is set to become a "city in a garden”. The abundance of greenery is a striking feature, with parks, green roofs, street side plants, and trees on every corner.

But greenery is not there just to please the eye and create livable public areas — it also helps mitigate the risk of flooding.

Singapore, like many other densely-populated cities, is at risk of flooding. One way to tackle this is by greening public spaces and encouraging private development to follow the principles of the government’s flagship “ABC” program, which looks to make water “Active, Beautiful and Clean”. Carefully planned and implemented, investments in so-called “green infrastructure” are paying off: they make the city more resilient and more sustainable in the long-term, and also create more spaces for people to meet and interact.

Although Singapore’s dedication to greening public spaces is remarkable, it is not the only city that is getting its hands “dirty” to promote natural ecosystems. The Netherlands has been promoting green approaches in urban planning for many years now, with the innovative redesign of sewer systems, or the creation of multi-functional “water squares” which can hold storm water when rain is heavy while otherwise serving as a social space.

In many parts of the world, changing demand and supply patterns are contributing to an increasing physical scarcity and competition for water resources. Historically, new demands have been met by developing additional supplies—with the incremental cost of water remaining relatively constant over time due to the ready availability of water development project sites to meet growing demands. As the water economy moves from an expansionary to a mature phase, incremental costs are sharply rising, and interdependencies among users and uses are greatly increasing. With this move, the issues to be addressed by water economists tend to become more pressing, broader and more complex. While in the expansionary phase structural or engineering approaches to water management tend to be the main focus, in a maturing water economy nonstructural or institutional options for solving water problems receive increasing attention. In particular, resource allocation and valuation issues move to the forefront of economic inquiry.